"You cannot go," said Mary Anne, with the decisively authoritative manner peculiar to the Thornycrofts. "You must come and spend some weeks with me at the Red Court." Mademoiselle shook her little brown head. It was not possible, she said; happy as she could be at the Red Court; much as she would have liked to stay again with her dear Miss Mary Anne. Her mother wanted her, and she must go. Turning about and about, they paced the heath while she repeated the substance of her mother's letter. Madame, said she, was suffering from a cold, from the separation, from loneliness, and had written for her. The Champs Elysées had no charms without her dear daughter; the toilettes were miserable; the playing children hustled her, their bonnes were not polite. Virginie must return the very first hour it would be convenient to do so. The pot-au-feu got burnt, the appartement smoked; madame had been so long en pension that she had forgotten how to manage things; never clever at household affairs, the craft of her hand appeared to have gone from her utterly. She had not had a dinner, so to say, since Virginie left; she had not slept one whole night. While Monsieur and Madame--her pupil's parents--had been away on their wedding tour, she had said nothing of this, but now that they were home again she would no longer keep silence. Virginie must come; and her best prayers would be upon her on the journey. A sort of mocking smile, covered on the instant by a sweet word, crossed my lady's lips. "It was all very well," she said, "just what a good mother would write; but mademoiselle must write back, and explain that she was wanted yet for some weeks at the Red Court Farm." "I cannot," said mademoiselle; "I wish I could. Miladi is very good to invite me; but my mother is my mother." "You left your mother for seven years; she did well then." "But, yes; that was different. Miladi can picture it. We have our ménage now." "I have set my heart upon your coming to us, mademoiselle," was miladi's rejoinder, showing for a moment her white teeth. "I should not need the pressing, if I could come," was the simple answer. "It is a holiday to me now to be at the Red Court Farm; but some things are practicable and others are not practicable, as miladi knows." And the poor little governess in the cause of her mother was hard as adamant. They walked about until my lady's legs were tired, and then prepared to return. "Of course you will come back with us, and dine for the last time?" said Mary Anne. On any other occasion my lady might have interposed with an intimation that Mary Anne Thornycroft had no longer licence to invite whom she pleased to the table of the Red Court Farm. Without waiting for her to second the invitation, mademoiselle at once accepted it. "For the last time," she repeated; "I shall be making my baggage tomorrow."